Ideology in Space: Mycenaean Symbols in Action, in: Metaphysis: Ritual, Myth and Symbolism, Proceedings of the 15th International Aegean Conference, Vienna, 22–25 April 2014. Aegaeum 39 (Leuven – Liège 2016) 175–185. (original) (raw)
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From the beginning of the Shaft Grave period, leading people on the mainland were in the position to acquire foreign luxuries and valuable raw materials in growing quantities. Some of these prestige goods clearly served as cult equipment in Minoan Crete; others display a complex system of religious figurative scenes and motifs of undoubtedly Minoan inspiration. Such scenes and motifs were virtually unknown in the preceding periods of MH Greece. Despite their foreign background, these objects had some impact on the formation of Mycenaean cult practices. It is argued that within this process of appropriation mainland inhabitants made a deliberate choice of the available ceremonial equipment and cult symbols. It seems that only those cult implements such as rhyta and tripod offering tables were borrowed from Crete, which could be incorporated in indigenous MH religious traditions. Significantly, such objects were produced until the end of the Palatial period. Correspondingly, Mycenaeans were interested in only those representations of ritual actions and symbols which had a meaning in terms of their own religious conceptions. Along these lines, Minoan forms of artistic expression had a strong impact on the development of Mycenaean religious figurative art and symbolism.
Chronologies should carry a 'use by' date: the archaeological life history of the 'Beth Shan Stirrup Jar' ������������������� 81 Elizabeth French Arthur Evans and the quest for the "origins of Mycenaean culture" ������������������������������������������������������������������������ 85 Yannis Galanakis Man/Woman, Warrior/Maiden: The Lefkandi Toumba female burial reconsidered �������������������������������������������������� 99 Kate Harrell The Waz-lily and the Priest's Axe: can relief-beads tell us something? �������������������������������������������������������������������� 105 Helen Hughes-Brock 'Working with the shadows': in search of the myriad forms of social complexity �������������������������������������������������� 117 Maria Iacovou James Saumarez Cameron: a forgotten collector of Cretan seals ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� 127 Olga Krzyszkowska ii The Post-Mycenaean dead: 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' �������������������������������������������������������������������� 135 Katie Lantzas The spider's web: innovation and society in the Early Helladic 'Period of the Corridor Houses' ������������������������������ 141 Joseph Maran and Maria Kostoula 'Metal makes the wheel go round': the development and diffusion of studded-tread wheels in the Ancient Near East and the Old World ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 159 Simone Mühl "For it is written": an experimental approach to the materiality and temporality of clay documents inscribed in Linear B ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 177 Ceramic developments in coastal Western Anatolia at the dawn of the Early Iron Age ������������������������������������������� 223 Rik Vaessen Beaker Folk in Thrace: a metrological footnote ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 233 Michael Vickers Rosso antico marble and the façade entablature of the Treasury of Atreus ����������������������������������������������������������� 237 Peter Warren Feasts of clay? Ceramics and feasting at Early Minoan Myrtos: Fournou Korifi ������������������������������������������������������� 247 Todd Whitelaw Dressing the house, dressing the pots: textile-inspired decoration in the late 3rd and 2nd millennia BC east Mediterranean ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 261 Toby C. Wilkinson
Giffen, K. 'The nature of Mycenaean religious and burial customs'
The nature of Mycenaean religious and burial customs, 2020
Greece of the Bronze Age is synonymous with the mythologised heroes and virtues of Homeric epic. The historicity of the Homeric heroes is an academic quest for another paper, however whether the heroes of Homeric epic lived or did not exist, there is no denying their influence and legacy on Mycenaean society and culture. Indeed, Homer himself tells us that he is composing his works in a time of lesser men; 1 whereby people of Bronze Age Mycenae could thus seek inspiration from these superior men to live more virtuous lives. Of particular interest is the extent to which Mycenaean religious and funerary customs parallel that of religious and funerary customs evident in The Iliad. From excavations of tombs and graves throughout the Argolid, it has been possible to identify that, although specific heroes and events of The Iliad may or may not have existed or occurred, they held particular influence over historical Mycenaean religious and funerary customs. 2 Thus, this paper is concerned with surveying and synthesising evidence from archaeological and artistic sources in order to reveal the nature of religious and funerary practices of Bronze Age Mycenae. Through comparison with written evidence from the Linear B tablets of Pylos as well as Homeric texts, this paper shall also discuss the extent to which the archaeological and artistic record reflects an already established social and cultural convention.
The paper examines the changes in the mortuary practices of mainland Greece from the Middle to the early Late Bronze Age from the perspective of social space. Emphasis is laid on the spatial relations between habitation areas and cemeteries, the layout of cemeteries and the design of tombs. The paper explores how spatial configurations may affect, define or simply reflect social relations within an Early Mycenaean community. In. A. Dakouri-Hild - M.J. Boyd 2016: Staging Death. Funerary Performance, Architecture and Landscape in the Aegean (Berlin: De Gruyter), 335-360
This volume focuses on collective practices, such as religious, feasting and burial rites, reconstructed from material evidence. The aim is to understand how collective practices were employed to articulate distinctive social identities in Early and Archaic Greece. Three sites located in important geographical areas are presented as study cases: the Late Helladic III-Early Iron Age Amyklaion in Laconia, the Late Geometric " Sacred Houses " in Attica, and a number of Archaic Necropoleis in Northern Greece. Taking into account new evidence, the three study-cases offer the opportunity to discuss important issues: the continuity of practices between the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age at the Amyklaion; the formation of social identities in feasting activities at particular buildings such as the " Sacred Houses " in Attica; and finally the observed changes in the funerary rites at a number of culturally diverse contexts in Northern Greece.